With inspiration from Windows 7

Windows 7 was a major stride for Microsoft as the company tried to escape the tarnished reputation of their previous operating system. Fortunately, at least one product stood out from the rest during the Windows Vista years: Office 2007 . The productivity suite dropped the traditional grey file menu bar with a brand new friendly ribbon interface. This redefined how applications should look and the concept had carried over to Office 2010 and even the family of Windows Live Essential programs. With inspiration from Windows Phone 7, the upcoming Windows 8 will feature a more informative login screen. Users will finally have the option to customize the background without having to turn to 3rd party tools. The new layout will prominently feature include the date and time with a metro-look. Users can also control music playback without having to login. There is also chatter regarding improved support for biometric technology, which Microsoft Windows 7 first offered out of the box.
If you are familiar with Windows history, you will realize that everything mentioned here may or may not happen. Microsoft has a long tradition of making sudden changes and deviating from the intended course. May of these features might make it through, but expect to see some disappear and other pop up out of no where. I have also heard that the company will choose to maintain the existing hardware requirements, meaning support for upgrades on Win 7 hardware. Keep in mind that Windows 8 probably will not hit stores for another two years, the recent set of leaks are very early prototypes.
Windows 8 also takes many concepts and elements from Win7 . This indicates that Microsoft may continue to push its desktop OS to tablet platforms rather than waiting for its relatively new mobile OS to mature. While Apple is sticking to iOS on tablets, they are also bringing mobile elements to Mac OS X Lion for a friendly experience. Catching up with Apple, Microsoft plans to finally bundle a PDF reader entitled "Modern Reader" with their next generation OS too.